


Awesome Mix 1

by Sholio



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Comment Fic, Gen, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-03 15:59:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10970592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: A collection of short GotG fics from prompts at Tumblr and elsewhere. There will be spoilers for GotG2.





	1. Yondu and the Ravager symbol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the following prompt on Tumblr: _Something I noticed on my second viewing of the movie--after Yondu takes the Ravager flame patch off to show to Baby Groot, he never puts it back on. What's he thinking? Does removing it symbolize anything in particular to Ravagers? (I have so many questions about how the whole Ravager code/society works...)_
> 
> Just when I think this movie has run out of ways to hurt me ...
> 
>  
> 
> [Originally posted here.](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/160893895698/something-i-noticed-on-my-second-viewing-of-the)

For his entire adult life, Yondu has worn the flame patch of the Ravagers. He doesn't have to look down to know it's not there after he hands it to the little tree kid. He can feel its absence, like a missing limb.

Or maybe it's the phantom pain of a limb that was cut off years ago.

Some things you can't go back from.

He tried to walk too many lines, that's all. Broke the code and knew it. Tried to go on being a Ravager anyway. Told himself he was one.

Let a scrawny Terran kid stay on his ship even though he knew it was a bad idea, because the little bastard wormed his way into that cold empty place in his soul before Yondu knew what was happening. But he couldn't go all the way to actually be the dad the kid needed, hell no, which was why Ego could take Peter and twist him around his finger the way he'd wanted to all those years ago, like all those other dead kids.

Did a shit job of being a Ravager, shit job of being a father, and this is where it gets him: half his crew is dead, other half is gonna be dead as soon as Rocket's little tree friend gets done bringing him everything in his quarters _except_ his spare fin, and Quill's run off and got himself in the one place in the universe where he's most likely to end up dead.

Tried to be two different things and ended up being none of ‘em.

Stakar's right. Yondu can dress like a Ravager, but that doesn't make him one.

He leaves the flame patch to burn in the real flames of his dying ship. There is no going back, only forward.


	2. Teenage Groot + flowers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Tumblr prompt: _Teenage Groot, flowers._ [Originally posted here.](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/160942260658/mantis-childhood-teenage-groot-flowers-gen-or)
> 
> This one is not _precisely_ gen, but I couldn't tell you what the heck it is instead. It is Groot.

Peter guessed he should have seen it coming, dealing with a teenage tree. After all, he remembered what being a teenager was like. He figured there were going to be, well, awkward or unpleasant conversations that he wasn't entirely prepared for, given that his upbringing hadn't been what you'd call the most orthodox.

(Yondu's version of giving him the birds and the bees talk had been to take him to a robot brothel at the age of 15. While he was fairly sure that this wouldn't pass child protection standards on any civilized planet, it hadn't gone badly, and he was glad to this day that there hadn't been any actual talking involved.)

So yeah, he remembered teenagehood, so he knew there were going to be situations to deal with. 

What he wasn't counting on was all this damn _pollen._

Groot had broken out in flowers almost overnight, and now there was a fine yellow coating on every single surface on the ship. It was _everywhere._ They'd run through the ship's entire supply of antihistamines in a week (it turned out pollen allergies were nearly universal; hooray). Pollen cleanup duty had become the least popular chore on the roster, especially since it didn't seem to be possible to get ahead of it. It was in their quarters, in Rocket's fur, in their food, in their water supply ... 

Peter could deal with it okay as long as he didn't think the implications through in too much detail. He hadn't slept through the night without sneezing himself awake in weeks, though. 

"Do you really have to do that here?" he demanded, squinting through reddened eyes at Rocket, who was brushing himself out in the copilot's chair. The cockpit was the one place that was, while not pollen-free (nowhere on the ship was pollen-free) at least _less_ pollen-coated than every other part of the ship, since Groot rarely came up here.

"Bite me," was Rocket's eloquent response as he worked on his faintly yellow-tinted fur. He sniffled, wiped his snout with his paw, and then wiped it on his leg.

"Dude? That's disgusting."

"Your bodily fluids aren't exactly made out of precious metals either, sweetheart."

"Yeah, but at least I try to keep them to myself." He managed to suppress a sneeze, telling himself it was purely psychosomatic from looking at the diffuse yellow cloud around Rocket. "Any idea how long this is supposed to go on?"

"Don't ask me; I ain't a botanist."

"Yeah, but you're about the closest thing we have on this ship to a Groot expert."

"Ehhh ... Two weeks."

"You made that number up. You completely and entirely pulled it out of your ass."

"Ask a stupid question," Rocket muttered. He started to lick the fur on his arm, out of habit, then stopped himself with a curled lip and went back to brushing.

From the level below, Peter heard Mantis's delighted chirp. "Groot, a flower, for me? How sweet!"

"i aM gROot."

Rocket and Peter shared a look.

"She has no clue, does she," Peter murmured.

"Think someone should tell her?"

"Are you volunteering?"

"Good point. In some circumstantualities, ignorance is bliss."


	3. Learning to speak Groot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Tumblr prompt: _how did Rocket learn to speak Groot?_ [Originally posted here.](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/161016921613/gotg-prompt-how-did-rocket-learn-to-speak-groot)

"Repeat after me, Quill: I am Groot."

"I am Groot," Peter said dutifully. He felt like an idiot, but there were only a limited number of ways to while away quiet nights on the ship when neither of them could sleep. If it was him and Gamora, or him and Drax, they could spar, but he'd only tried sparring with Rocket once. It took weeks for the bite marks to heal.

Rocket's oddly expressive -- for a raccoon -- face wrinkled in an expression of disgust. "Do you even hear yourself? That is nothing like what I just said."

"Dude, that is _exactly_ what you just said."

"No, I said 'I am Groot' and you said 'I am Groot'."

"Which is ... the same?"

Rocket stared at him for a long moment, then pointed at his snout. "Read my lips: I am Groot."

"Was I supposed to repeat that, or ..."

Rocket showed some teeth. Peter shut up. There was a moment of silence and Peter was just about to put his earbuds back in and quit with the language lessons when Rocket said suddenly, "Quill, if I say, 'I am Groot,' just like that, what do you hear?"

"Is this a trick question? Especially the kind of trick question that's gonna end in you pissing on my bed?"

"That was only once, and you had it coming --"

"Rocket --"

"No, for the love o' cheese, it's not a trick question. Just say 'I am Groot'."

"I am Groot," Peter said. "I feel like a complete jackass right now, in case that was your intent -- hey, where are you going?"

"Jus' need to get a thing!" Rocket's voice trailed behind him.

Peter flopped back down in the chair in the mess and put his earbuds in. He was actually getting sleepy, and considering going back to bed, when Rocket jumped up onto the table in front of him with something clutched in his paws.

"What's that?" Peter asked, sitting up. He palmed off the Zune and took off the earpieces. He had to hand it to Earth tech: the new music player was a lot more convenient to carry around than his late, lamented Walkman.

Rocket's device was a thin, flat screen about the size of a hardback book; he had it clutched with a paw on each side while readouts rippled quickly across it.

"Okay, _now_ say 'I am Groot'," Rocket declared, studying the screen.

"Come on, man, do we really have to go through this again?"

"Humor me."

Peter sighed and slouched in his chair. "I am Groot."

Rocket's ears pricked forward. "I am Groot," he said, and tapped the display with his paw, causing the tiny, scrolling lines and numbers to freeze. "Did that sound the same to you?"

"Well ... yeah?"

The flat pads of Rocket's fingers danced across the display, and he laid the screen on the table between them. "Know what you're lookin' at?"

"Squiggly lines," Peter said automatically.

"Did your mama drop you on the head a lot as a baby, Quill?"

"No, but Yondu did occasionally." Peter rested his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand. As much fun as it was to mess with Rocket, he did actually think he knew what the raccoon was getting at. "That wiggly line is some kind of ... uh ... noise -- wiggle -- curve, right?"

"That's real precise."

"I was abducted from Earth before we got to algebra in school. Cut me some slack here."

"Excuses, excuses. I was raised in a cage and my mother had an IQ of 3." Rocket touched the display, zooming in on it. "Point is, I don't think it's just that all a' you two-legged bunch is too obtuse to understand perfectly clear speech --"

"Thanks."

"-- like I used to think. It's more like, my ears hear at higher _and_ lower frequencies than yours do, so I get different overtones. Put simply for the simple, I can hear things you can't."

Peter leaned forward, intrigued. "So, wait -- you mean all this time, all his 'I am Groot's sound different to you?"

He realized what he'd said as soon as the words left his mouth, and got the flat 'I am dealing with morons' look from Rocket that he'd instantly realized he had coming. "How am I supposed to understand him if they don't, Quill, I ask you?"

"Okay -- point -- but ... so why does it sound like 'I am Groot' to the rest of us?"

"It sounds like 'I am Groot' to me too." When Peter glowered at him, Rocket held up a paw. "No, I ain't messin' with ya. This time. No, that's what the translation unit picks up, 'cause it ain't so smart about some of the less humanoid languages. It's just, I hear it like ..." He hesitated and waggled his paw. "It's like your music, right? All those up and down tones at the same time. Groot can do that. Your throat, my throat, can't."

"Singing?" Peter said after a minute. "Groot's _singing?"_

"I refer you back to the part about bein' dropped on your head." Rocket pursed his lips and let out a sharp whistle, making Peter jump -- there was still some part of him that couldn't quite hear whistling and not expect a death arrow to follow an instant later. And he might not be the only one, because Rocket stopped abruptly, closed his mouth, and then said, "Quill, do this," and hummed softly.

It wasn't really a tune. "You just want me to hum?" Peter asked. "Like, generic humming?"

Rocket curled his lip and the hum became more of a snarl.

"Right, humming," Peter said hastily.

The funny thing was, the instant his soft hum of response hit the right harmonics with the note Rocket was humming (and the raccoon _did_ have a good sense of pitch; Peter had always suspected so) he understood exactly what Rocket was getting at.

"Ohhhhh. When Groot talks, it's like a symphony. Is that what you mean? And the 'I am Groot' part is the part in the human audible range."

Rocket's ears and tail went up cheerfully. "Yeah, ezzactly. He's tryin' to communicate, it's just he didn't get any farther than 'I am Groot' when he was learning. It's as hard for him to do the talkin' part for the translators as it is for you and me to do his kind of talk. He can hear us just fine, though. Actually to him, understanding our talk is dead easy."

"So how do we understand him?" Peter asked. "Can you, I dunno, juice up the translator so it picks up a higher range of frequencies, or something?"

"I dunno. That's not a bad idea." Rocket tapped his claw against his teeth before picking up the screen thing and hopping off the table. "Have to think on it. Don't wanna explode your heads or anything."

"Yeah, well, on that lovely note, I'm goin' to bed." He actually was tired enough now to fall asleep in spite of the inevitable nightmares ( _the bitter cold and darkness of space; Ego's face dissolving in his hands; his friends crushed by rocks or blown apart_ ). The music helped as it always had, a melodic bulwark against the dark, wrapped gently around his heart -- but it could only do so much.

Rocket grunted absently as he trotted off, already engrossed in figuring out the problem.

The thought occurred to Peter as he wandered back to his quarters, thumbing idly through the songs on the Zune, that these sorts of mechanical puzzles served the same purpose for Rocket as his music did for him: something to make his mind go quiet.

The music did that ... and so did letting Gamora beat the stuffing out of him in the ship's small exercise area. Or getting language lessons from Rocket. Or --

"I am Groot?"

Peter jumped as small hands grabbed hold of his pants leg. Groot shimmied quickly up to perch on his shoulder.

"Hey, little buddy." Peter opened the door to his quarters and left it open so Groot could come and go as he wanted. Or so he could hear if anybody got into a fight or whatever. He flopped wearily on his unmade bed, careful not to dislodge Groot. "You know, I'm not sure how much of this you can understand right now, but Rocket's teaching me to speak your language."

"I am Groot?"

"Well, to understand you more than speak it, I guess I should say." He was lying on his back now and he couldn't really see Groot except out of the corner of his eye, but he could feel the little tree shifting around in the hollow where the collar of his sweatshirt rested against his neck.

"I am Groot," Groot said insistently, almost in his ear. Small hands patted at the side of his face and his earlobe.

"Yeah, yeah." Peter pinched one earbud between two fingers and held it where Groot could get at it. The little hands took it out of his fingers. Peter settled himself comfortably as Groot squirmed somewhat ticklishly against his neck, and sorted through the songs. "How 'bout Elton John tonight, buddy?"

"I am Groot," came the sleepy answer.

"You know, little guy," Peter murmured, as the first strains of the music began to play and Groot snuggled comfortably against his neck, "whether or not Rocket can get his new gadget working, I think we understand each other just fine, don't we?"

"I am Groot!"


	4. Yondu meets Meredith Quill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Also posted on Tumblr.](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/161440117318/not-for-a-prompt-this-time-but-just-a-spontaneous)

Yondu isn't sure what he expects to happen next after freezing to death and asphyxiating in space -- well, there's not supposed to be a _next,_ that's kind of the point, but standing in a field of grass on some random planet is really, really not it.

The grass is up to his knees and it's a shade of bluish green. There are some rolling hills in the distance, a blue sky above with a hint of gold and pink. It's nearing this planet's sunset, either that or just past dawn, enough to give the light a long, golden quality. 

None of this really narrows it down. A lot of planets have blue skies and plants in this general color range. And he doesn't like that he has no idea how he got here. He reaches under his coat and touches his arrow to make sure it's where it's supposed to be, even though he can also feel it through his implant.

... but that's not quite right, is it? The arrow was broken --

"Hello," a quiet voice says from behind him.

He whirls, coat flaring around him, the arrow automatically heating up for action.

The woman is standing a few yards behind him in the grass. She's got a lot of light-colored hair and she's wearing a white and blue dress that flutters in the wind. He's not entirely sure of her species -- could be Terran, could be Xandarian, could be from any one of a few dozen planets got settled by people with that general look. Peter's look.

"Yondu Udonta, right?" she says with a tentative smile, looking him in the eyes. And there's something about her _eyes_ , that's what does it. He knows those eyes.

"Yeah," he says, and he's not quite ready to power down the arrow because he's been around the galaxy too many times, in too many ways, to enjoy mysterious fields he doesn't remember getting to, with too-friendly women standing in them. But still -- her _face_ \--

The woman walks forward through the grass. She doesn't seem afraid, and she _ought_ to be afraid of him, tiny and soft like she is, and completely unarmed by the look of it. Unarmed people who aren't scared of people carrying weapons are the worst. There's usually a reason.

"I wanted to be the first to say hi to you. I hope you don't mind, um, all of this." She holds out a hand to indicate the field around them, the blue sky with its soft hints of other colors. "I know it won't look familiar to you, but I wasn't sure what _you’d_ think was familiar and comfortable, figured I’d just get it wrong if I tried, and ... I also thought maybe you’d want to see it. This is Missouri, Mr. Udonta."

And with that, he can't really deny any more what he knows to be true, and he lets the connection to the arrow die. He can't threaten this woman, at least no more than he threatens her just by standing here, twice her size with the ability to deal death to her in a dozen different ways. "An' you're Meredith Quill," he says softly.

Her smile is wide and bright and heartbreakingly like Peter's. But of course it would be. Kid didn't get anything from Ego, nothing Yondu's ever been able to see. "Yes. I wanted very much to meet you."

There's nothing he can say to that. Nothing he can say to her at all, really. What could Peter's mother ever have to say to him? If she knows who he is, then surely she knows what he's done -- what he did to Peter, and to all of those children who were Peter's half-siblings. 

The bitterness of this particular fate makes a sardonic smile tug at the corners of his mouth. He hasn't lived a good life, and he knows it, but he still wasn't prepared to have it paid back to him this fittingly: to stand in front of this woman he wronged (one of the many, many mothers he wronged), the woman whose son he stole away from her family to sell to a monster and then, to compound his crime, raised to a life she could not possibly have wanted for him. And there's nothing he can say to her that could change anything, no words he could offer in his own defense, not when he comes to her reeking of death, with hands metaphorically drenched in blood.

There is nothing he deserves more than whatever punishment she wishes to mete out to him, and he's prepared to receive it.

The one thing he's not prepared for is what she actually does when she reaches him. For a moment she stands in front of him, looking up at him with an expression that he can't understand at all, eyes wide and soft ( _Peter's eyes_ ). And then she reaches out and touches him hesitantly on the shoulder -- he tries not to flinch -- and lays her other hand lightly on his chest, and then --

And then she hugs him, stretching on tiptoe and leaning into him and wrapping her arms around him and hugging him, coat and weapons and all.

"Thank you," she whispers into his shoulder. "Thank you for taking care of my baby for me. Thank you for saving him. _Thank you._ "


End file.
